1996 Topps Star Wars Finest Trading Cards

When you're a movie franchise that's had trading cards for multiple decades, it's safe to expect a little experimentation. 1996 Topps Star Wars Finest took the popular chromium brand to a galaxy far, far away. Although it appears the higher price tag for the time may have scared many collectors off when it first came out, it doesn't stop the art-based set from being one of the most attractive Star Wars releases Topps has done.

The 90-card base set focuses entirely on characters. Not only are there familiar names from the original trilogy, but new faces from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Following a title card, the rest of the breaks down into ten different subsets, each focusing on a specific theme and a different artist doing the artwork on the front:

Rebel Alliance - Russell Walks #2-9

Rebels & Affiliates - Juda Tverski #10-18

Imperial Command - Chris Moeller #19-27

Imperials & Affiliates - Mark Harrison #28-36

Force Users - Joe Phillips #37-45

Spies, Smugglers & Rogues - Lou Harrison #46-54

Indigenous Life Forms - Marc Sasso #55-63

Mos Eisley Cantina - Tony Harris #64-72

Jabba's Palace - Joe Chiodo #73-81

Droids - Den Beauvais #82-90

What would a Finest set be without Refractors? These rainbow-finish parallels cover the entire base set, landing 1:12 packs. In the years since the release, these have remained especially popular with collectors looking to build a set. Besides the rainbow background on the front, Refractors can also be identified by the back of the card. Regular base cards have a silver illustration on the back. Refractors are gold.

1996 Topps Star Wars Finest has two additional insert sets, neither of which are exceptionally tough to collect, nor are they very expensive. Six Embossed Foil cards (1:9 packs) fit together to form a puzzle. It's fairly standard technology with the embossing adding a little extra texture. Four Matrix inserts (1:12 packs) spotlight high-profile characters with a different type of foil.

For completists, there is also a 1996 Topps Star Wars Finest binder that came with an exclusive card.

Ryan Cracknell | E-Mail Author
Ryan's collecting origins began with winter bike rides to the corner store, tossing a couple of quarters onto the counter and peddling home with a couple packs of O-Pee-Chee hockey in his pocket. Today, he continues to build sets, go after inserts with cool technologies, chase Montreal Expos and finish off his John Jaha master collection. Ryan can be found on Twitter @tradercracks and Google+.